There are a lot of sources for tea available to drinkers in the Western world. There are specialty stores that sell one brand of tea, perhaps also teaware, and will provide a pot or cup of tea to taste, while others might sell a variety of brands. There are tea importers, processors, packagers, and tea wholesalers. There are also tea farmers. It all comes down to tea as a business, and my morning cup.
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The Tea Business
Imagine a person who loves drinking tea, wanting to open a little business where their favorite teas would be sold, along with the necessary gear. With proper planning, including creating a well thought-out business plan and acquiring adequate start-up funding, a small, retail tea business can be profitable. However, in this day and age, that entrepreneurial desire described in charts, text, and funding is not enough.
Since most teas are grown in many places around the world, other considerations that are part personal preferences, a bit of your political decisions, and lots of ethical choices; all must be considered before a tea shop can open. Especially given the new, and growing, emphasis on sustainability, carbon foot-prints, fair wages, workers rights, and climate change.
Here are just a handful of those other considerations.
First, is what teas will be sold. There are green, white, oolong, pu’er, tisanes, blends and the ever popular black. There are also popular tea-based drinks such as: iced tea, milk teas, boba teas, etc.
Second, is what type of tea farming do you want to represent. Here it is mainly the choice is between commodity or traditionally grown teas (more on this below). Does the taste of tea matter?
Third, has to do with geography, and which county or region do you want your tea grown. Main choices are: China, India, Kenya, Sri Lanka, Turkey, Indonesia, Viet Nam, Japan, Iran, and Argentina (1). While the USA does grow tea, mainly in South Carolina, and it is considered more a commodity tea (1).
Fourth, is ethical in nature. Do you care about the environment? Consider the well-being of the farmers or people who work on the farm? Want tea without pesticides? Concerned with the farms work environment, is it safe?
Fifth, is political. Having to do with which countries do you want to represent via the teas. Does that country enforce fraud regulations? Does it have good labor laws?
The Tea Chain
Conventionally, it starts with the entity that plants, grows, and harvests the tea. This might be family farmers, tea cooperatives, tea plantations, or even governmentally controlled or regulated farms. Then the tea leaves are processed either on the farm, or in a factory, by the farmer or wholesaler. From there the tea is is bundled, stored, and sold to international companies via auction centers. From the warehouse, it is shipped to various places around the world. Where, once received, national tea wholesalers may mix the tea leaves or process them further into sachets, or loose leaf bags for packaging and transport to retail outlets. This way moves the tea from the farmer to a processor, then to a wholesaler, who moves the tea to a shipper, who ships to another wholesaler or company, who might process the tea further, then the tea goes to a retail outlet and finally gets to you.
Alternatively, like how Verdant Teas (and others) runs their retail business, the farmer (or village or cooperative) grows, processes, and packages the tea for shipping to the vendor. The vendor stores and then sells the tea either through a physical outlet, or via mail order. This moves tea directly from the farmer to the seller, then to you.
Transparency
It is nearly impossible to identify the quality of tea without knowing the source and processing it undergoes. The only way to identify all the necessary details about a food poduct is when you are dealing directly with the farmer who grows the tea. Only then can you identify where it is grown, how it is nurtured, harvested, processed, and packaged.
As with most things, the tea business is really a “trust, but verify” business, even when dealing directly with farmers.
Tea Fraud
From the description above, it is quite easy for me to see where opportunities for fraud. Fraud is used for only one of two purposes, first is to increase profits (so greed), and second is to meet a contract’s obligation or customer demand when the product is not available.
- Mislable where the tea is from to hide information about its source
- Cut the quality tea with lower quality to increase volume of higher costing product
- Claim “organic” on conventionally grown tea for higher wholesale costs
Commodity Vs Traditional
Tea is split between being a commodity or being a traditional farming product. The TeaTrekker writes, a commodity tea is grown by large companies in newly-planted tea fields in areas of the world not usually associated with tea growing and that have very little tea making history. Conversely, traditionally-made tea uses well-established methodologies and techniques to do what tea farmers and mother nature do best together – make distinctive tea.
When tea is considered just a commodity, it winds up being intensely farmed, harvested too many times, often imperfectly processed, and the product is not considered for taste, just volume. This kind of tea is universally disparaged by tea drinkers: This tea is grown for wholesale packagers of commercial grade tea, flavored tea blends and bottled tea drinks. The goal for industrial tea producers is low production cost and abundant yield, a combination that rarely results in premium quality tea. Often the tea you buy is 12+ months old.
Commodity tea is often grown in large industrial tea gardens, located in flat and low-lying agricultural areas subject to what is happening nearby, in terms of pollution. This type of farming also done in these areas so mechanized techniques can be used in planting and harvesting. Most of the tea grown in the USA, for instance, is commodity tea (1), suited best for big-box stores that sell tea in mass quantities. To my mind the yellow boxes of 100 Lipton tea bags comes to mind.
For me, I prefer a quality tea that actually tastes nuanced.
Certifications to Help
But for a consumer the question remains, how do I pick my tea. First, I tend to pick tea sellers who have pesticide free, organic, tea. Then I taste the tea to see if I like it. And then I research the company to find if they are certified.
Ethical Tea Partnership
ETP’s mission is to catalyse long-term, systemic change, to benefit everybody who works in tea – especially people in tea-producing regions.
They have 50 members, including: JBE Peets and Starbucks Teavana, as well as The Republic of Tea, Ahmed Teas, Twinings, and Taylors of Harrogate.
Fair Trade Certified
According to their website, Fair Trade Certified™ is an award-winning, rigorous, and globally recognized sustainable sourcing model that improves livelihoods, protects the environment, and builds resilient, transparent supply chains. The Fair Trade Certified helps guaranteed a minimum price that acts as a safety net for farmers and producers when market prices are low; Rigorous Fair Trade Certified standards ensure safe and healthy working conditions, the elimination of forced/child labor, fair and consistent compensation, and environmental protections and product traceability.
- Fair Trade USA’s (FTUSA) label allows allows companies with ongoing human rights and environmental violations, or have as little as only 20% certified ingredients to use its logo. So be sure to dismiss this logo as marketing only.
Fair Trade USA also allows large-scale operations to be certified without regard to unfair competition created for small-scale farmers and without effective enforcement mechanisms. Its apparel program allows for the use of a label even if only one of the stages of production is certified and does not require fair trade cotton.
They have many tea members, here are a few: DavidsTea, Just Iced Tea, Numi, and Honey Green Tea.
Rainforest Alliance Certification (RAC)
To actually achieve, and maintain, the Rainforest Alliance certification seal, tea farms must undergo annual audits that have rigorous and detailed environmental, economic, and social requirements. There must be livable wages, and protections for the workers against child or forced labor, discrimination, and workplace violence and harassment. Plus, the Alliance helps farmers utilize sustainable techniques.
- In2023, RAC pulled its certification from James Finlay (Kenya) Ltd and ekaterra Tea Kenya Plc, major African tea exporters, due to allegations of sexual harassment, infecting subordinates with AIDS, and rape.
I could not find a list of farmers or companies that use this certification, but they are out there. After checking at the various stores I saw: The Republic of Tea, Teatulia Organic teas, and Yogi Tea. In FY20, Starbucks reported its teas were 99.7% sourced from Rainforest Alliance certified farms.
UTZ Certified
In 2018 UTZ Certified became part of the Rainforest Alliance. Since the merger, the two organizations have run in parallel. Simultaneously, a new agricultural standard was developed, which builds on the strengths of both.
From my experience, not every farm is certified, for it costs money to join and administrative overhead to monitor and pay for reviews. Small farms are generally poor and cannot afford the added cost. So sometimes I may see “pesticide free” or “organic but not certified”. The bottom line is certification may help, but it is largely the bigger corps that join them, or smaller businesses that need to distinguish themselves from the other similar businesses.
Tea PattyCooks Drinking Prefrences
Companies
Verdant Teas: This is a tea company that has many teas I enjoy. In 2011, they wrote, that while none of the teas are certified, they meet the standards of organic and fair trade production. That is because Verdant Teas has partnered with a set of farmers in China, dealing directly with those that grow and process the tea, thereby skipping all the middlemen (1). The teas are labeled with the farmers family names, which results in a a very personal business model that is allowing organically grown teas, and apparently sustainable farming practices to flourish.
Previous post: My Favorite Chinese Tea is From Verdant Teas.
The teas I always keep on hand are:
- Yunnan White Jasmine
- Reserve Big Red Robe
- Herbal, caffeine-free tasting kit (I like keeping some non-caffeine on hand for guests)
Individual Teas
Taylors of Harrogate Afternoon Darjeeling A gentle, tasty black tea from Darjeeling, India. I steep, then add some milk (plant or cow) and honey. Previous post: The Official Coronation Tea of King Charles III.
Ahmed Earl Grey: This is blended from black tea grown in Sri Lanka, Malawi, and Kenya; bergamot is the aromatic. Please note, it has a light touch of bergamot, so I drink it with juice from half a Meyer lemon and some honey. Previous post: Searching for the Best Earl Grey
Right now I am also looking into Teabox’s Darjeeling tea and some Japanese green tea vendors; will let you know.
—Patty
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My writings have not provided income, I have bought the products and only recommend what I actually use, and would buy on my own. While this has attitude has not changed, my hobby is now expensive and this year I am working with a few vendors whose products I have used for years, as a way to cover my costs of running this blog. Nothing high-pressure, it is meant just to assist you in getting these products easier and to assist me in paying for the website, applications, and web services. My website is not sponsored by any business or individual, but me.